I wake lying next to Logan on the couch beneath his heavy wool blanket. His arm is still wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed against the crown of my head. I keep still, letting the warmth and the solidness of his body imprint itself to mine. I want to memorize this moment, a tiny piece of what I once wanted, to hold with me while I face what comes next.
“Are you awake?” His voice is a low rumble against my ear.
I nod, though I don’t want to.
“I’ve been thinking. About yesterday.”
Oliver. I have to tell him. Now.
I struggle to sit up, but his arm tightens. “Please. Just listen for a minute.”
I stop struggling, but tension coils within me.
“I don’t know what happened. But I need to tell you, to convince you, that if he … if there was anything … if he hurt you in the way a man can hurt a woman, it wouldn’t change how I see you. He can’t break us, Rachel, unless we let him.”
“I also want to make a promise to you. Will you look at me?”
I roll over, the leather squeaking in protest beneath me, and tilt my head back to stare into his dark blue eyes. He raises his hand and strokes the side of my face. His touch is far gentler than his words.
“I’m going to make the Commander pay for what he did, Rachel. I swear it. And if he dares lay hands on you today, I won’t stop until he’s dead.”
This kind of response will ruin everything. All the Commander needs is one tiny excuse to take Logan from me forever. And I’m about to tell him something that will make his anger so much worse.
Suddenly I realize this is what the Commander is banking on. Logan will try to Claim me to protect me from the Commander’s machinations, and I’ll blindside him with the Commander’s plan. The only one who benefits is the Commander.
Unless Logan knows.
The shadows of grief and loss can’t obscure the startling clarity of this thought. I feel like I’ve emerged from a long slumber, awake and ready to act.
I’d be a fool to take the Commander at his word. I have to protect Logan, and the only way to do it is to trust him the way I promised I would. Logan won’t lose it at the Claiming ceremony and give the Commander an excuse to hurt him if he’s prepared to have me turn him down.
And he won’t try to exact unthinking, furious revenge for Oliver if he has a chance to grieve and then formulate a plan.
My voice is still hoarse from the screaming I did yesterday as I look Logan in the eye and say, “I already knew about the Claiming ceremony. He told me when he—”
My throat closes as the memories hit. Being inside the wagon. Oliver. Crimson everywhere.
Logan reaches up to cup my face with his palm, and I smell him—ink, fresh paper, and musk. “Listen to me, Rachel. You can take this one piece at a time. I’m in no hurry. Tell me about the Claiming ceremony. We’ll start there.”
“He says you’ll try to Claim me.”
“I will.”
“But that’s what he wants. What he expects.”
Logan frowns, and I can almost hear the gears of his mind working, analyzing, and plotting.
“He wants me to turn you down.”
“You don’t legally have that right. Only your Protector does.”
“You’re my Protector.”
“Which is what he’s going to use against me,” Logan says in his I-have-a-puzzle-to-solve voice. “He’s going to say as your Protector, I can’t both Claim you and speak for you. But why bother? What does he stand to gain? He doesn’t want you Claimed by someone else because he’s planning to send you into the Wasteland …”
I can see the answer written in his eyes even as I say it. “He’ll publicly renounce your Protectorship so you can’t legally stop him. He wants us separated because you aren’t going with me.”
“The hell I’m not.” His face is hard and bright.
“He said …” Grief surges through my chest, burning a path to my throat.
“Tell me.”
“He’s going to kill you.” Suddenly the words are there, tumbling over themselves in a rush to be heard. “He said I’m loyal to a fault, and I’ll do anything to avoid having him kill someone else I love.”
The wagon bed. The cloth-covered lump. Crimson everywhere.
I can’t breathe as the blood-soaked image of Oliver burns itself into my brain and stays. Pushing away from Logan, I rush to the back door, wrench it open, race across the porch and fall onto the grass, retching.
He’s behind me in seconds, holding my hair back.
When my stomach is empty, he helps me sit on the bottom porch step, goes into the house, and returns with a glass of cold water and a sprig of mint.
I chew the mint and sip the water in grateful silence, but it’s a brief reprieve. He needs the rest of the story, and I have to find a way to give it to him.
He sits beside me, his shoulder touching mine, and says quietly, “Did he claim to have killed Jared?”
I shake my head, and set the glass down before my shaking hands drop it on their own. “He took me. In a wagon. There was a cloth-covered lump. And he said we were plotting behind his back.” My voice rises as I rush to get through it all. “I thought it was you. I thought he’d taken you, and I prayed it would be a stranger. Another guard like the one in the tower. But it wasn’t.”
My voice trembles. “He stabbed the person beneath the cloth, and there was blood everywhere, and I tried to reach him, but I couldn’t.” I reach a hand out to Logan, for absolution or for comfort, I don’t know. “I couldn’t save him. I thought he was safe, waiting for us in the Wasteland, and I didn’t save him. I’m so sorry!”
My voice breaks, and I drop my hand as terrible awareness comes into Logan’s eyes. “Oliver?” he asks in a voice that begs me to lie. To make the truth something he can still fix.
I nod.
He stares at me, eyes glassy with shock, then jumps to his feet and strides across the yard. When he reaches the sparring area, he takes a vicious swing and sends Bob flying along his wire. Minutes pass as Logan pounds his fists into Bob as if by obliterating the dummy, he can obliterate the truth.
Finally, his arms fall to his sides and he drops to his knees on the grass. I go to him and lay a hand on his shoulder. Turning into me, he wraps his arms around me and drags me against him. I hold him and vow I will make the Commander hurt for what he’s done to us. When Logan finally lifts his face to me, I can see he feels the same. His eyes are haunted, his expression hard.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is small against the weight of our loss, but it’s all I have to give.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” His voice chokes on the last word, and he scrubs his hands over his face. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“They took him away in the wagon?”
“Guards came in and took him.” I can’t look at him. I can’t bear to see the shadows in his eyes. “They just … dragged him away.”
“I want to see him. I want to …”
Say good-bye. Say the things he now wishes he’d said the last time he saw Oliver. I don’t know if it would make it easier, but I know he needs it. I do too, but we aren’t going to get it. We aren’t going to get another word to say on the matter that doesn’t involve the sharp end of a sword.
“He should have a proper burial.”
“Yes. But he isn’t going to get it.” The words taste like ashes. We’ll never lay Oliver to rest. Never say the words he deserved to hear. Never bring flowers to a sacred patch of ground set aside for Oliver alone. “He isn’t going to get it. But he can have justice. If we work together.”
I make sure Logan meets my eyes and say, “You can’t Claim me today, or the Commander will turn it against you and separate us.”
Logan looks fierce. “We’re going to turn his plan against him instead. I’m going as your Protector. We’ll hide our travel bags before we get to the Square. Someone will try to Claim you, and I’ll agree to it, but it won’t matter. When everyone is dancing and celebrating, you and I will sneak away, grab our bags, and be gone before he even realizes he’s lost the game.”
Suddenly, his arms are around me again, and I’m against the hard wall of his chest. “Rachel, I’m sorry you had to see Oliver die.”
“No, I’m sorry. If I’d just stabbed the Commander like you said—”
“This wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine. It was the Commander’s. And one day, I’ll make him pay for it in full.”
“No, one day we’ll make him pay for it in full,” I say.
“Yes,” he says, holding my gaze. “We will. Starting today.”